Originally Posted by
BOAC
- agreed, but if I may make a plea - while this thread is about 447, it should really be expanded to cover all instances of autotrim which have caused numerous LOC incidents.
Such as? I'm pretty sure this is the only one.
There also seems to be a continuing misinterpretation of the B777's bypass switch (aka "Big Red Button") - it needs to exist in the B777 design due to the software-driven force-feedback. If that subsystem goes and provides misleading control response to the crew, things could get ugly very quickly - so the bypass acts as a "failsafe" for that scenario. Airbus's system doesn't use force-feedback, so there's no need for that kind of failsafe requirement.
Interestingly, the B777 bypass mode has never been used, even though there have been a couple of incidents where it could have come in handy (e.g. Malaysian 124 out of Perth [IIRC] springs to mind). The crews in the incidents didn't take advantage of it.